


Nothing Else Matters

by Rat_chan



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Fuck Or Die, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-18 14:29:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16120409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rat_chan/pseuds/Rat_chan
Summary: Things go horribly wrong when Mac, Jack, and Riley go after the La Ola Cartel again. The cartel has been making "improvements" to KX-7 and when Jack is injected with the drug, there seems to be only one way for Mac to save him...*Rated explicit to be on the safe side as it is somewhat graphic.





	1. Forever Trusting Who We Are

**Author's Note:**

> Work title is taken from the Metallica song and chapter titles are taken from the lyrics of that song.
> 
> This story is likely not entirely medically accurate, but it was the most realistic scenario I could come up with. I'm afraid, evil bitch that I am in fiction writing, that Fuck or Die has always been a favorite kinkmeme trope of mine, but making it work remotely believably always is the struggle.
> 
> Set sometime in an alternate timeline to season 3, I guess. I initially conceived this story before the summary for the first episode was released. Oh, and in this story, Mac and Jack are not a couple. I cannot romantically or sexually ship them.

"Jack!" Riley shouted out, immediately giving voice to the terror that was still just a visceral knot in Mac's gut, as the needle stabbed into Jack's arm and the plunger went down. She ran toward him as he staggered away from his captor and held his shoulder.

"Now, MacGyver," the cartel lieutenant said as he tossed the needle away. "You can stop me..." The man smirked as he slipped a USB backup of the cartel's experimental data and a few sample vials into a pocket of his cargo pants. "Or you can save your friend." Jack was shuddering in Riley's hold, eyes alternately widening and narrowing as he tried to fight the fast-acting drug cocktail. "You cannot do both, I think." The man left those parting words and a trail of smug laughter that clearly indicated his knowledge of what Mac would choose.

"Ri... Mac..." Jack's voice came out in short, pained gasps. "Go... Get him..." He started to push Riley away, but then stopped, looking at his hand as if he did not trust it. "Get out of here." The extended hand clenched into a fist and muscles along his neck and arms bulged with tension.

"No, Jack." Riley tried to pull the man toward a chair, but he was immovable. "We're not leaving you. Mac can help you." She turned wide, pleading eyes toward the blond man.

"I..." The knot of fear pushed upward from Mac's belly to choke him. His eyes darted around the lab, but all he saw were remembered scenes from the experimental data videos... There was the subject who had died in writhing agony, looking as if his heart had exploded... There was the subject who had survived, panting in the aftermath of carnage until returning awareness had sent him into screaming horror at what surrounded him... There was every degree of pain and violence in between... Now, though, the faces in those images all became Jack and Riley.

If they left Jack, the drug would certainly kill him, and painfully. " _I ain't afraid of death, I just don't want there to be any pain._ " Those not so long ago words echoed back. _I can't let him die like that._

But if they stayed...

"Go... please..." A tear leaked from the corner of an eye as Jack begged, fingernails of one hand digging into the other arm as he fought to hold onto fading awareness. "I don't... want..."

 _I don't want to hurt you._ Mac could hear the finished sentence in his head. A sensation like a needle being pressed into his own flesh twinged in his breast. He pushed it away, along with the incipient desire to start crying like Riley was already doing.

"Riley, go." He pulled the hacker away, then pushed her toward the reinforced door of the lab.

"I can't leave him like this!" She pushed back. "I--"

"Now!" He pushed her out the door and slammed it shut behind them just as Jack launched himself off the wall toward them. They had needed to blast the lock off the door to get in, but, for tragically obvious reasons, it had also been made to bar from the outside.

"Mac!" She grabbed the open front of his jacket after he finished barring the door. Rage and fear fought one another in her glistening eyes. "We can't just--"

"We're not!" He said sharply, gripping her wrists as she tried to pull him away from the door. "We're not," he repeated more quietly, lowering her hands as gently as he could. " _You_ are. No, Riley," he stopped her before she could protest. "You know he couldn't live with himself if he hurt you."

"He's not going to hurt me!" Her conviction faltered at the sound of something crashing and breaking on the other side of the door.

"He won't be able to stop. Not with that drug in his system and your fear and anger filling the room." He took a deep breath, trying to expel his own turbulent emotions along with the spent air. "I'll take care of Jack."

"And what am I supposed to do?" Her hands turned in his hold until she was gripping his wrists instead.

"Find a way to track Gomez's man. We can't let him get away with that drug." He looked hard into her eyes, trying to pass on new determination. "He can't get away with this."

Finally, she nodded. "That son of a bitch isn't going anywhere." She pulled away and her hands moved to grasp the straps of her backpack as she started following the lieutenant's path. "Mac," she paused in the corridor, eyes clouded with warring concerns. "He'll never forgive himself if he hurts you, either."

"Don't worry." He tried to shape something resembling a confident, reassuring smile as he placed a hand on the door bar behind him. "I'll think of something."

\-- -- -- -- --

"Luis Gomez and the La Ola Cartel have set up a new lab for synthesizing KX-7," Matty had informed them, after the briefest of introduction of the intel. "But without Oversight's original formula, the experiments have only proved more, if differently lethal." She had then displayed a dozen newspaper articles in Spanish, each detailing disappearances or grisly remains found in the region.

"Any sign of Walsh?" Mac had asked, a paper clip gradually taking on a new shape in his hands.

"At this point, no. Oversight is still trying to track him down, so this mission will be Mac, Jack, and Riley along with a Phoenix tac team."

"Why Riley?" Jack had asked, gaze lingering on what appeared to be a photo of female remains.

"One, because I said so." Matty dismissed the news articles from the screen. "And two, because their security system appears to be on an otherwise offline local area network."

"Don't worry," Riley had piped in, "I won't mock your Spanish accent if Mac doesn't."

"We've been through this before..."

The rest of the briefing and the flight to Mexico had been further sprinkled with that surrogate father-daughter banter and Jack's "not butchering" the Spanish language. Mac had laughed here and there, but not contributed much, thoughts preoccupied with what had happened the last time they had been south of the border. He had been equally irritated that his dad was not helping them clean up his continued mess and relieved that they would not be in close quarters again just yet. He had agreed to come back to the Phoenix for his true family -- not the man with whom he merely shared DNA. Jack had given him a few sidelong looks, but had seemed to understand, as he occasionally did, what was going on in Mac's headspace.

"Who's up for margaritas on the flight home?" Jack had asked when they were landing. "That goes for you boys, too," he had added to the squad that had accompanied them. Whatever undue tension had remained had been dispelled with that invitation and they had continued on with ground transportation.

Fortunately for them, the new facility had not been as remote nor as perfectly defensible as the previous. They had been able to get close enough by car and the tac team had had little trouble reaching and securing the perimeter on foot. There had been some trouble inside, though. Riley had hacked their security system with ease once she had wired in, but the drug data had apparently been on an entirely offline device. They had located that device, but had unknowingly wasted precious time looking at the data. That was where the cartel's agent had found them.

And Gomez's lieutenant had seemed particularly motivated to keep them from succeeding. The man had injected the remaining guards with the experimental drug before grabbing the laptop with the data and locking himself in the lab. By the time Jack had subdued the berserkers and Mac had made a small explosive to blast open the lab door, the cartel man had downloaded a backup of the data and armed himself with more of the drug. He had gone for Riley, because he had thought her either the weakest or the most sentimental target. Jack, out of bullets at that point, had gone for the enemy with his bare hands. Fear of the death Gomez would undoubtedly deal to him had galvanized the man, however, and he had managed to twist Jack's arm behind his back and jam the needle into his arm before Mac and Riley could intervene.

And that was how Mac now found himself preparing to face down his friend and partner. Though he knew every second could mean the difference between life and death for Jack, still his hand hesitated on the bar to the door. He watched through the door's window as the drugged man pulled his comm out of his ear and threw it away, though the exchange between Riley and the tac team that had no doubt prompted the action sounded far away to Mac.

 _Calm_. He took another deep breath and tried not only to be, but to project calm. He needed to prevent anything that might unduly antagonize Jack and also to somehow keep the other man's heart rate and blood pressure from getting too high. He pulled out his own comm, switched it off, and put it in a pocket with... _Jack's phone..._ He forgot why he had taken it, but maybe there was something... He pulled it out, unlocked it, opened the music app, and scrolled through the tracks. _There_.  
Mac queued up the chosen song, set it to repeat, and upped the volume. He unbarred the door, cracked it, and let the Metallica ballad _Nothing Else Matters_ precede him through the door.

"Jack," he called softly, "it's me, Mac." He was unsure how altered the drugged man's consciousness was -- they had not had time to identify all the psychotropics the cartel had added to the new mix, nor the quantities. The potentially lethal cocaine and steroid combination did not seem largely changed, however. He avoided looking at the bloodstained corner of the room -- focused only on his friend, who was leaning over a counter, panting, muscles still tensed. "I'm going to help you." He tried to infuse the words with more conviction than he felt.

Jack did not respond. His eyes locked on the backlit display of the phone and he followed its movement as Mac ever so slowly and gently laid it on the counter. "See, I didn't break it this time." The younger agent had to avoid anything that might disturb his friend. The drug seemed to amp the fight or flight instinct, then tip the balance entirely toward fight. _I need to nonviolently incapacitate him._ Unfortunately, as he kept half his attention on Jack while looking around the room, he could not locate a single drug or chemical which he could use as or use to make an anesthetic. _Then something to keep his heart rate and blood pressure down..._

Mac suppressed a sigh along with the latent fear and frustration that prompted it. All the drugs that remained in the room were designed to do much the opposite. Pain and fear could cause drops in blood pressure, but, even if Jack could properly process either of those feelings at the moment, they also tended to boost heart rate. _Need to get him back to baseline..._

" _Yeah_!" There was a sudden, percussive crescendo in the song. It caused Jack to push himself away from the counter, eyes widening, and Mac could not stop himself from jumping at the reaction. In an instant, the drugged agent was on him, pinning him down on another counter with hands tight around his throat. His own hands moved instinctively to pull at the hold.

 _That's one way._ Mac once again struggled to will away his fear... and the memories of the drug trial videos. Some of the subjects had recovered after finding violent release in the act of killing. _Not an option._ He kept his mind voice deliberately clinical.

"Jack, shhh." His actual voice he kept soft and soothing, choked though it was. "Shhh," he repeated, moving his hands to lightly caress Jack's. "It's alright," he managed to add after the grip on his throat loosened. "You're alright, Jack." He kept stroking the hands at his throat and felt those fingers relax further.

And then Jack shifted against him. _Shit_. It was sheer panic Mac fought against then as he felt the other man's erection press against him. _No_... Some of the subjects had experienced heightened arousal as a side effect... and it had not ended well for anyone in the room with them.

 _Fight or flight?_ The words skittered through his mind along with those warring impulses as Jack rutted against him again. The hands at his throat moved to his shoulders and Mac had to close his eyes as the expression on his friend's face shifted to one of pure animal lust. _Fight_! He repressed that instinct, forcing his hands to drop away from Jack's and his legs not to kick out. If he turned this into a fight, one or both of them would undoubtedly die.

 _Flight_? His heart pleaded in his friend's voice. The true Jack Dalton might very well rather die than do this to someone he loved like a brother. But... The act of sex, unlike vigorous fighting, did not elevate blood pressure or heart rate much more than regular daily activities... Based on the experimental data, it was quite possible Jack's vitals would revert to baseline not long after... after...

Mac pushed the thought away and focused on being passive. _I can do this for him._ If the choice was losing Jack forever or letting this happen, it was a small enough sacrifice to make. _For Jack._ He again suppressed defensive instinct as hands fumbled at his belt and pants. _To save him._ He tried to make that his only reality as he was roughly turned over on the counter. _To save Jack..._ He clung to that idea while his pants and underwear were pulled down and the overloud sound of a zipper came from behind him.

" _Nothing else matters_." The song still playing on Jack's phone gave voice to Mac's thoughts as something hard and hot was pressed against his backside. Distantly, beyond that echoing mantra, sick panic rose in his gut, tried to impel his limbs to movement. Yet he held himself still and willed tense muscles to relax... even as his body was painfully invaded.

 _To save..._ Pain eroded his mental defenses and sensation overtook his consciousness. There was the tight grip on his shoulder... The brush of fingers against his rear as the other hand guided Jack's ( _not Jack's_ ) erection inside... The cold, hard press of the counter into his cheek... The ragged, grunting breathing behind and above him... And most of all, the searing, stretching agony inside... His own hands, limp at his sides until then, moved to grip the edge of the counter. In spite of his crumbling will, his body jerked, as if trying to throw off his attacker, but this only served to push the invading member further inside.

He bit his lip against the smallest cry of pain, but the sound was subsumed in the moan of pleasure that Jack made as he thrust himself fully in. _It's not Jack_ , Mac told himself again. It was some violent beast grabbing, almost clawing at his hip as it pulled out and thrust in again. It was some demon possessing Jack that was moaning with each repeated thrust, harder and faster into Mac. Whatever it was, it would give Jack back when it finished.

 _It's not Jack._.. The concept became harder to cling to as the body over him shifted, leaning over him more and bringing the familiar smell of Jack's sweat to his nostrils. Mac loosed his lip from his teeth and opened his mouth to breathe through it. _Not Jack_... But, when he opened his eyes at the slap on the counter beside him, there was Jack's wrist cuff, taut around tense muscles. Hands, undeniably his friend's, grasped harder at his shoulder, clawed at the table as the other man pushed harder, faster, more erratically into Mac. _Not... Jack..._

"Mac..." But the voice was unmistakably Jack's as the man groaned, gave one last shuddering thrust, and released himself into his prone friend. Mac once more shut his eyes tightly against tears of pain... Closed his mouth against sickness while Jack half-collapsed on top of him, softening erection still encased.

 _No... not... ... Jack!_ The pain-scattered pieces of Mac's psyche coalesced when Jack loosed a sharp breath and went utterly limp over him. His eyes snapped open and he struggled out from under the other man, hissing slightly in pain at the withdrawal. They ended up sliding to the floor as Mac searched desperately for a pulse. He gave a sound somewhere between a sigh of relief and a cry when he found that gradually steadying rhythm.

 _He can't know..._ A new panic overwhelmed him -- spurred him to rapid action. _Jack can't know what happened._ He got to his feet as quickly as his abused body would allow, ignoring the pain and the sickening wetness of his backside as he pulled up his underwear and redid his pants and belt. He remembered seeing a sink on one side of the lab. On his way toward it, he paused to silence Jack's phone, which was still playing that Metallica song. With shaking hands, he pulled out several paper towels, dampened one, and returned to his slumped friend.

"I'm sorry, Jack," he said quietly as he crouched down in front of him. He located the other man's now flaccid penis with his peripheral vision -- he could not look at it directly -- and began wiping it clean. Guilt added more bile to the acrid taste in the back of Mac's throat. "Sorry," he repeated as he struggled, vision blurred, to right Jack's underwear and pants. He left the currently unconscious man to go back to the sink, where he disposed of the soiled paper towels... And had to lean over the sink, heaving, trying not to be sick.

"Mac? Jack?" Mac turned to find Riley peeking in the half-open door to the lab. Her expression was pinched with worry and her lower lip was between her teeth, as if to hold her back from shouting their names. "Mac, where's Jack?" Her eyes widened as they searched the room, at first only seeing him.

"He's recovering," he said, forcing strength and calm into his voice from somewhere. He pointed to where Jack lay on the floor and watched as Riley practically threw herself down next to him. Her motions mimicked Mac's earlier ones as she feverishly felt for a pulse and checked Jack's breathing.

"He's alive..." She released a huge, shuddering sigh.

 _It was worth it,_ Mac told himself as he watched Riley clasp one of Jack's hands. He pushed away the memory of where that hand had been minutes before.

"He's alive. You're fine. You--" She moved her gaze to Mac and something must have shown in his gaze or his stance. The budding smile on her face withered. "Mac?"

"I'm fine," he tried to reassure her, faking a smile of his own. He found it hard to continue to meet her worried gaze as she got back to her feet and started moving toward him. "Really." He made the mistake of trying to straighten to his full height and had to suppress a wince of pain.

"Mac..." Her eyes widened again as she took in that pained motion. Mac found it impossible to continue to meet her gaze as it filled with growing horror, darting between his lower body, the no doubt faintly lingering imprints of fingers and countertop on his neck and face, and the laptop that was still sitting on a table. He closed stinging eyes against that gaze, but he still heard her soft voice. "You said you'd think of something."

"I..." Her words hit him like an accusation. "I'm sorry. I... There was nothing I could use." He clenched his fists at his side and shook his head. "There was nothing else I could do." His voice was as weak as the words.

"Mac, no. _God_ , I didn't mean..." She placed soft, cool fingers on one of his fists. "Are you going to be alright?"

He opened his eyes, but still could not meet hers. "He's alive," he said to her shoulder. "We're both alive and he won't know what happened." His gaze slid past her to Jack's phone. "Nothing else matters."

She opened her mouth, but whatever response or protest she had been about to make was cut off as Jack groaned on the floor behind her. She shot Mac one last sad, worried look before rushing back to Jack. She helped him get into a sitting position and then kept an arm around his shoulder.

"Ri?" He touched a hand to her hair, as if to reassure himself of her presence and then moved it to his face as he grimaced in pain.

"I'm here, Jack. I'm fine," she reassured him.

"Mac!?" As awareness began to more fully return to him, Jack began frantically looking around the room. Riley held onto him as he tried to lever himself up.

"I'm here, Jack." Mac moved closer and into his friend's line of sight, steps slow. "I'm fine, too." He did not have to force the smile, small though it was, this time as he met the older man's relieved gaze.

"What happened?" Jack looked back and forth between them. "I remember Jabby the cartel man sticking me with the berserker juice and then..."

"We got him," Riley informed them both. "The rest of the team has him secured in one of the Jeeps. And Mac..." She faltered in her explanation. "You..."

"The drug's effect has mostly worn off," was how Mac decided to phrase it. "But..."

"Medical is standing by in the jet." She put a hand to her ear and said her next words to the comm. "I need a couple of agents to help Agent Dalton back to ground transport."

"I don't--" Jack started to protest, trying again to rise. "Ow. Alright. Maybe I need some help." With the help of Riley and the counter, he did manage to get up. "I feel like I've been kicked by a mule." He leaned heavily against the counter. "And drained by a vampire." His eyes moved across the countertop until they landed on his phone. "Hey, my phone."

"See, I didn't break it this time," Mac unconsciously repeated his early words. Jack frowned at that and, to distract him, the blond man moved closer still, picked up the phone, and handed it to him. "Not even a scratch."

Jack managed to take the phone and pocket it. "Thanks, Hoss." He found further strength to reach up and grasp Mac's shoulder. The younger man struggled to suppress a wince. "Really, thank you." Jack looked seriously into his friend's eyes. "I know you saved my ass again, somehow."

"I..." Mac could not answer properly -- not with that grip on his shoulder. It was the same shoulder the other man had held when... He shook his head almost violently. "It was nothing." He was unsure to which of them he said it.

He was saved from any further dissembling by the arrival of two members of the tac team. They lent a shoulder each to Jack while Mac tried to focus on the present. His friend was alive and well and protesting to the other agents that he was not an old man.

"Mac?" Riley's concerned gaze again locked on him.

"No, Riles." He shook his head at her. "I'm-- I'll be fine."

She gave her own head shake, but was silent. And she hovered near him as they made their own painstaking way out of the facility.

 _I'll be fine._ Mac pushed away the pain inside him. _Jack will be fine._ He ignored the remaining, unpleasant wetness of his underwear and the vague, lingering feelings of guilt and sickness. _That's all that matters_.


	2. Trust I Seek, and I Find in You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack is recovering on the Phoenix jet, but he can't quite believe that he's alive and his friends are unhurt. Especially when they seem to be hiding something from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't mean for it to be a whole week between chapters, but... Oh well. Sorry.

" _Jack_!" Dream or memory, the echo of Riley's cry woke Jack from vague nightmares. They had been more impressions and feelings than visualizations, but no more pleasant for it. Mac had been in pain and danger and Jack had been utterly helpless to do anything about it. In any case, he was glad to be awake.

"How are you feeling?" Riley asked him. She had taken the seat facing him on the jet as soon as medical had finished with him. Mac was seated across the aisle from him.

"Mostly alive," Jack answered as he got his bleary eyes to focus. "On a _Die Hard_ scale, John McClane at the end of _Die Hard with a Vengeance_." He tried a smile as he looked from one friend to another. Riley still looked worried, but Mac managed at least a wry twist of his mouth. Jack had not had much of a chance to talk with either of them since they had left the cartel's compound. His waking moments on the drive back to the airstrip had been mostly filled with Mac or Riley pushing a water bottle into his hand and telling him to keep hydrated and to rest and those on the jet had been so far filled with the medic drawing blood and checking his vitals. The woman had told him that everything seemed fine, but he should probably get checked by a cardiologist to make sure there had been no undue strain on his heart.

"You didn't look so good there for a moment," Riley commented, her frown deepening slightly. "Nightmares?"

"I don't know..." He turned to look more fully at Mac, his own brow creasing.

"Probably lingering effects of whatever psychotropics were in the drug," the other man responded before turning to look out the window. "It'll pass."

"If you say so..." The distant cries of pain and fear from those dreams echoed tinnily in Jack's mind and he cast his gaze searchingly over his friend. He had not gotten much of a direct look at Mac since coming back to himself in the lab, but even the blond man's profile looked about as wrung out as Jack felt.

 _"I synthesized an inhalation anesthetic,"_ Mac had kind-of explained in the Jeep when, during one of Jack's waking moments, the groggy man had asked how he had been saved. Somehow the young genius had managed to be vague and technical at the same time. His subtle evasiveness then and now bothered Jack. They had all seen bits of the experimental data and the older man still could not quite believe they had all gotten out mostly unscathed. He looked back to Riley, whose concerned gaze now seemed to envelop both men.

"Maybe you should get some more rest," she suggested -- to one or both of them, he was not sure.

"I'm good for now." He _was_ sure that he did not want any more night terrors for the remainder of the flight. He pulled out his phone to get an idea of how long that might be. He frowned again in renewed puzzlement when his phone opened to the music player. He did not remember listening to Metallica so far on this misadventure. "Mac?" He asked as he tapped the play icon.

The other man jumped slightly, as if somehow startled by the soft guitar intro to the song. "Sorry," he said as he turned away from the window again. "I was drifting." His expression wavered for a moment until it smoothed into neutrality. "I had to keep you calm." Mac's gaze was on the phone, but Jack could still identify hints of fear and sadness in the mix of emotion that clouded those blue eyes. "I thought it might help..."

"Well." Jack leaned forward in his seat, attempting to get his friend's look focused on the gratitude he tried to pour into his own gaze and smile. "It's really something else to think of you saving my life with Metallica."

"I..." Jack's smile faltered as Mac's eyes glazed over and he swallowed convulsively. The vocals to _Nothing Else Matters_ drifted in the air between them and Mac pushed himself almost violently out of his seat. "Excuse me," was all he gasped out before he rushed away to the jet's bathroom.

"Mac?" Jack started to rise from his own seat to follow, vague apprehension beginning to gnaw at his gut. Riley's hands stopped him and pushed him firmly back into his seat. He looked at her, but her gaze followed Mac's path, sadness now joining the worry that seemed a fixed part of her expression now. "Riley, what...?" " _What's wrong with Mac?" "What aren't you telling me?" "What happened?_ " All the questions he wanted to ask bubbled up at once, blocking his throat.

"Mac's just..." She leaned back in her seat once more. "I think it's a reaction to that laughing gas he made." Her gaze now shifted to the window and one hand rose to fiddle with her necklace. "He... mentioned that he breathed a little in and... I guess it had side effects."

 _They're hiding something_. He would have said it was his Spidey Senses tingling, but the sick certainty now beginning to roil in his gut could not be defined so lightly. _Something really awful_... He closed his eyes as the song went into a guitar solo and tried to recall all he could about what had happened. He remembered the terror he had felt when he saw the cartel man going after Riley... The sense of fatality when the needle stabbed his flesh... Increasingly hazy impressions of pain, anger, and fear as the drug overtook him... Desperate words pouring out of his mouth as he lost himself to... Oblivion... There was nothing after that until he had awoken on a hard floor, body lethargic, pain in his chest, and voices sounding nearby.

" _Nothing else matters,_ " the song echoed the words Jack had heard distantly as he had returned to consciousness. Who had said them and in response to what, he was unaware. But the implications. He furrowed his brow as if that might aid his memory. _What happened?_ When he had opened his eyes and looked around, there had been no bodies... No new bloodstains... Nothing except his friends, who had appeared uninjured, relieved, and... sad. _Why the hell were they sad?_

He opened his eyes as the bathroom door clicked shut. He stopped the song before turning his head to watch Mac's return. "Hoss?"

"I'm fine, Jack. It's..." His gaze moved past the older man briefly, then back as he continued. "Nausea is a common side effect of nitrous oxide." The blond man's mouth curved into a rueful smile. "It might have helped to keep one of those water bottles for myself."

"Speaking of which..." Jack's bladder suddenly decided to let him know of a pressing need for relief. As he got slowly to his feet, he felt Riley hovering anxiously beside him. "I think I'll manage this on my own, thank you," he said to her. "It's not something a man wants help with."

"Can't say it's something a woman wants help with, either." Finally, her voice sounded free of the tension that had filled it since he had awoken. He spared her a grimace-like half-smile before pushing himself toward the now vacant restroom.

"Why you nerds think 'drinking plenty of fluids' solves anything besides continence..." he mumbled while he moved, as quickly as remaining lethargy would allow, past Mac and into the bathroom. Once inside, all thought gave way to the urgency of his bladder and the immediacy of its relief. When that was achieved, he spared a few glances for the mirror while he washed and dried his hands. _Mostly alive may have been generous..._ No wonder Mac and Riley still looked so worried. If the younger man had looked wrung out, then Jack looked over-wrung, crumpled, and stampeded. _That's gotta be it,_ he told himself as he exited the restroom. "Seriously?" He asked aloud when he saw how his friends had decided to welcome him back.

"It's good for flushing out the system," Mac explained as he and Riley waved water bottles at Jack. Strain and sadness were almost entirely subsumed by wicked glee in their expressions.

" _Lingering effects of psychotropics..._ " Jack pushed away his earlier fear -- dismissed his uneasy feelings. _Drug-induced paranoia,_ he assured himself as he returned their smiles.

"You know what's good for flushing out the system?" He raised his voice to ask most of the jet. "Those margaritas I promised!"

Riley's scolding and the jocular agreement of the members of the tac team spared thug-sitting duties were drowned out by the vehement protests of the medic. And if Riley's exasperation seemed deliberate... If Mac's silent reaction seemed equal parts relief and sorrow... Well that was just more paranoia, right?

\-- -- -- -- --

There had been no margaritas on the remainder of the flight, which had been a fairly short time anyway. And Jack had not even had a chance to suggest them upon return to the Phoenix. Matty had not called for a debriefing-- apparently one had already taken place via comms. She had, however, promptly ordered Riley to get the cartel's laptop to the lab and "Blondie" to "escort Jack's ass straight to medical". Bozer and Leanna had not been there to greet them because they had been sent on a different mission, it seemed. Riley had shot Mac a brief, enigmatic look before saying she would meet them at medical and heading off to the lab.

"Just you and me and our Doc in the Box again." Jack commented to his silent friend after the hacker departed. "Just like old times." He reached out to clap Mac on the shoulder. With a gasp, the younger man flinched away from the touch. Jack immediately pulled his hand away. "Mac?" The blond man had a fist raised defensively in front of him and his eyes were wide.

"Sorry." Mac slowly unclenched his fist and lowered his hand. "Pretty sure I picked up a nasty bruise there during the fight." His mouth was curved in a chagrined smile, but there was still fear in his eyes and his words came a little too fast. "Remember when that guard came at me while I was making the bomb?"

"It was one hell of a brawl," Jack commented distractedly. His attention was split between following Mac, who had started walking, and trying to recollect anything distinctly from the fight... and after. "Hard to remember everything clearly, but I thought I clipped that guy before he touched you?"

"Well, I had just finished splicing..." The younger man launched into an overly detailed description of his work on the explosive device. Jack's brain, as usual, started tuning out the technical stuff and latched onto one idea as Mac went on to uncharacteristically recap more of the fight as well.

 _He's trying to distract me._ Jack could not dismiss it as paranoia anymore. Mac was lying and hiding something. That sick feeling from the flight returned, insisting that whatever it was, Jack did not want to know. _But I need to know._ He reached out again, this time lightly touching his friend on the arm, halting him at the door to medical. Still, Mac tensed, even if he did not jerk away, and his eyes filled with fear and something Jack was finally able to identify: guilt. "Mac." He did not make it a question this time, but a plea.

"Agent Dalton," the medic called as she approached them. "Let's check those vitals again."

"I'll leave you to it." Mac pulled away with visible relief. "Take good care of him, Doc." He was trying to sound normal, but there was the slightest hitch in his voice.

"Don't I always?" The medic shot the younger man a puzzled look before she opened the door and waved Jack through with his file.

"Let's get this over with." Jack knew he was taking out fear and frustration on the wrong person, but he could not help it. He sent one more beseeching look Mac's way before he moved through the door, but the other man avoided meeting it.

"Now that I have your file for baseline information, I'll have a better idea of how you're doing." The medic got straight to business, checking his heart rate and blood pressure, listening to his chest, and comparing her observations to those on the jet and in the file. "Nothing out of the ordinary now," she commented, "but how do you feel?"

 _Confused. Nervous._ "Tired," he said aloud.

"Any chest pains?"

"Only when I first... woke up." He answered her with half his attention as he saw movement outside the room. The medical rooms used some of the same technology as the War Room and the medic had not activated visual privacy. Jack could clearly see Riley joining Mac in the hallway.

"Irregular heartbeat? Palpitations? Shortness of breath? Difficulty in breathing?"

Jack offered a brief negation to each query as he watched his two friends talking. Of course, he could not hear them, but he knew them. Riley's worried profile, her nervous gestures, her soft touches to Mac's hand and shoulder all indicated concern and a wish for him to take care of himself. But the swift, downward motion of Mac's hand, the following side to side motion, his lip-bite and shake of the head all said clearly "no" and "never" and a very false "nothing".

"Nausea? Dizziness? Light-headedness? Disorientation?"

At that last one, Jack finally gave the medic more of his attention. "I have been feeling a bit... edgy since I woke up on the plane."

The woman, who had apparently had her attention mostly fixed on his chart, looked up at that. "Hardly surprising. We don't have the full tox screen yet, but I suspect more than one thing in there could cause lingering paranoia or anxiety." She gave him a slightly less clinical smile. "I'd say it was a normal reaction to a near-death experience, but..."

"All in the line of duty." He glanced back out of the room. Mac and Riley waved at him from the other side of the divider, finished, it seemed, with their discussion. He gave a brief wave back before asking the medic, "Would that tox screen show everything I was given?"

"Well, everything we look for that was also still in your bloodstream at the time the sample was taken." She frowned at Jack's unusual curiosity.

"I just wondered if the laughing gas would show up?" He cast back in his memory and found both Riley's and Mac's expressions when they spoke of the anesthetic to be disingenuous.

"The what?" Her frown deepened.

"Mac said he whipped up some laughing gas and knocked me out with it when I was all drugged and crazy."

"You must have misheard." The medic glanced out of the room and then back at Jack, still frowning. "While nitrous oxide is pretty easy to produce in a laboratory, Agent MacGyver would never have done something so stupid."

"What do you mean?" He managed to get the words out despite the turbulent emotions again roiling in his stomach and trying to block his throat. _They lied._

"Nitrous oxide would have elevated your already dangerously fast heart rate. It would have been more likely to kill you than knock you out."

 _They lied and I don't know why._ Except, looking back at his friends' concerned faces, he did know why. _To protect me..._ Whatever had happened -- whatever Mac had done to save him -- they thought Jack was better off not knowing. "Thanks, Doc." Half thought out words came out of his mouth. "You're probably right." He needed her gone. "I think I need to rest again now." Needed to be alone.

"There's a sofa over there." She pointed behind her before touching the paneling to make the room walls opaque. "You absolutely should rest and I meant what I said earlier about the cardiologist."

"Yes, ma'am." He only distantly heard her comments and his own reply. He equally distantly heard her sending Mac and Riley away with assurances that he was fine and would see them after resting. He did not hear them protest at all.

 _What happened?_ The questioned rang out and echoed endlessly in his head until it lost most of its meaning. Jack sat down on the couch and closed his eyes. _What happened?_ His friends, thinking they were shielding him, would not tell him. That left his own clouded memory to try and answer that fateful question. _What happened?_ But between the drugging and the waking, there was only an abyss. And if he thought too hard on that, his fearful imagination would populate it with any number of potential demons...

 _What the hell happened?_ He focused again on what he remembered when he woke up. Pain, cold, bewilderment... relief when he saw Riley... fear when he did not see Mac. _Why was I so afraid?_ His memory did not answer. Any more than his friends would answer if he asked them why they had looked at him with sorrow and guilt as much as relief.

 _Wait_. There might be something that could answer, though. _That light_... When Jack had first visually searched the bloodstained lab for Mac, he had not seen the other man. But he had seen a little light blinking on the camera that had been mounted in the lab. _Yahtzee_.

Slowly, Jack got to his feet and moved to the door. He checked the corridor, but did not see anyone. He proceeded cautiously through the Phoenix building, keeping an eye out for anybody who expected him to be resting, until he got to the almost empty lab.

"Agent Dalton," Sparky greeted him. "It's so good to see you fully functional." The robot was apparently both privy to Jack's condition and being taught Star Wars quotes.

"Thanks, Sparky." Jack gave the lab another once over to assure himself that a lab tech was not there and to make sure the cartel computer was there. _Double check._ With that established, he walked to the AI and switched it off. "Sorry."

His steps became hesitant as he moved to the desk with the laptop, though. _Go Cowboys._ Another small step. _Yippee-ki-yay._ Neither the Dallas team nor John McClane could dispel his trepidation. Once again the fear of knowing and the desire to know warred inside him, turning his gut inside out.

 _Odds are I won't even be able to use this thing..._ His love-hate relationship with technology and the idea that the thing was probably in Spanish were the thoughts that finally moved his shaking hands to the device. He opened it and it automatically woke up.

There was a message on the screen. Jack could read "Bluetooth" and he thought one of the Spanish words meant lost... Hoping he was not screwing anything up, he clicked the X above the message.

And there it was: a video. It looked like the camera had started recording and sending the feed to the laptop as soon as they had burst into the lab. His trembling fingers hovered over the square that served as the device's mouse before he finally moved the pointer and clicked play.

The stand-off with the cartel lieutenant seemed much shorter than he remembered -- the scenes in his head seemed to move in slow motion. He also saw things he had been unable to at the time. Riley's tears, his own grotesquely straining muscles and red face, and the look of helpless terror on Mac's face before they both left the room as he apparently accurately recalled begging them to do.

Then came the part that would, likely horrifically, fill in the blanks in his memory. After uncomfortable moments watching himself rage around the lab, the door opened and Mac came in slowly, holding Jack's phone like a shield. The Metallica song and Mac's voice sounded in the speakers. "I didn't break it this time." Jack felt the same disorienting jolt he had when he had heard those words later. _Part of me remembers_... Given his earlier nightmares and the current sick feeling in his stomach, he did not think that was a good thing.

Pain was added to his sensations as he got glimpses of Mac's expression in the video. Not even in Afghanistan had Jack seen such desperation and helplessness on his comrade's face. It was clear that Mac had had no idea how to counteract the drug, but... somehow...

Jack jumped in imitation of the same motion on screen. The loudest part of the song had apparently triggered him when drugged and the Jack on screen was throttling Mac. The blond man's lips mouthed words too soft for the camera's mic to pick up. He did not fight but seemed to be trying to soothe. It looked like it was working but... There was a tightness in Jack's chest that had nothing to do with drugs as he watched the image of his friend's expression morph from despair to panic to one Jack hated more than the others, somehow: bitter resignation.

Resignation to what became sickeningly clear as Jack watched himself fumble Mac's belt, pants, and underwear out of the way before flipping the unresisting man over. "Fight." Horror, heartsickness, and physical illness pushed that one, broken word out of him. "Fight," he begged one or both men in the video as the Jack on screen pulled his own pants down and positioned himself, grasping the same shoulder that Mac now flinched when it was touched.

 _Stop it..._ Whether Jack meant the video or the act within it, he could not tell. _Don't_... His hand rose to cover his mouth and he bit the inside of his lip. It contained whatever cry he might have made, but not the tidal wave of violent emotion that prompted it. He swallowed blood, bile, and tears as he watched himself _rape_ his dearest friend.

 _How could I?_ The same pained cries he had heard in his dreams sounded in the video. _How could he let me?_ The Mac in the video seemed to fight pain and horror, but not the act that caused them. _How?_

And then Jack heard something that broke down the last of his will. " _Mac_..." The version of him in the video said his friend's name as he... as he...

Jack dropped down and fumbled around the floor for the nearest wastebasket as he vomited. _I knew_... There was nothing but water in his stomach, but still it was violently expelled. _I knew it was him and I... I still..._ The sick knot of horror, pain, and loathing that blinded, choked, and nearly paralyzed him could not be expelled, however, and he just collapsed over the small bin, retching. _Why didn't he just let me die?_

 _"He can't know."_ A fervent voice sounded from the speakers and Jack looked blearily up at the computer screen to watch the image of Mac move feverishly, in spite of evident pain, to cover up what had happened.

"Why didn't you just let me die?"

"I'm sorry, Jack." Real Mac's voice sounded almost in time with video Mac's. Jack turned in his kneeling position and saw an almost identical look of pain and guilt on the blond man's face as the one on screen. "I couldn't..."

"Why?" Jack asked, though he saw Riley behind Mac. "How?" Her eyes were closed tightly against tears and her hand was curled around her lips, but he had nothing to spare for her then. "How could...?" He choked on the words.

"I couldn't let you die!" Mac shouted, stumbling toward Jack and resting clenched fists on the kneeling man's shoulders. "I couldn't think of any other way to save you..." Behind Jack, Riley's voice sounded from the video, but his attention was entirely focused on the man in front of him. "I knew you would probably rather die than... than to..." The grief and remorse contorting Mac's face seemed to choke him for a moment. His fists rose to either side of his face. "I _knew_ , but I was too god damned selfish to lose you!" His hands dropped completely as his legs seemed to give out and he dropped to a crouch. "Even though I might still lose you..."

 _"He's alive."_ The man's soft recorded voice sounded loud in the silence. _"We're both alive and he won't know what happened."_ But Jack did know. _"Nothing else matters."_ He knew and it did matter.

"How...?" His friend's pain joined his own to twine fingers around his heart and wring it tighter than the drug ever had. "How can...?" He wanted to reach out to Mac, but he could not trust himself -- could not trust the other man's reaction to his touch. "How can I live with myself?" His voice was weak, but the words got out, finally. "Knowing what I did to you?"

"It wasn't you!" Mac did reach out, grasping Jack's shoulders this time. A hint of characteristic determination joined the dark emotion and unshed tears in those blue eyes. "You didn't know what you were doing."

"Wasn't it?" This time, Jack did extend his hand toward Mac, but he pulled back just before touching, seeing the other man fight an involuntary reaction. "Didn't I?" He turned his face away slightly, feeling hot tears stinging his own eyes.

"What?"

"I heard myself, Mac." It was the thing they would never get past. "I said your name while I... while I _raped_ you."

"Stop!" Both men started at Riley's hoarse, harsh cry. "I can't..." Her hands were pressed to her temples and her makeup was starting to run from her tears. "Just stop." Her repetition seemed equally directed at herself as she angrily wiped her eyes before moving toward the two men on the floor. She tugged at them until they got to their feet and faced her. "That's not what happened, Jack."

"You weren't there, Ri." It was not any easier to meet her eyes than Mac's at the moment.

"But I know _you_ , Jack, and I know you would never hurt Mac if you could help it. No!" She raised a hand to cut off his incipient protest. Then, she moved to the desk and, with fingers that hesitated as much as Jack's had, restarted the video. The whiteness of her lips and wetness of her eyes indicated how little she wanted to see what was on the screen, but she still fast forwarded the video until the... act was finished, then rewinded to just before. "Listen."

" _Mac_..." Jack fought renewed nausea and he sensed Mac shuddering and turning away beside him.

"No, don't look." Riley's voice was pleading and determined at the same time. " _Listen_." She replayed it again. "Don't you _hear_ it?"

"Hear what!?" Jack felt stretched thinner than ever, close to breaking.

"Pain." She looked beseechingly at him. "It's the same voice I heard when you blamed yourself for Murdoc taking Mac." Mac moved again at that. Jack caught his shifting gaze in the corner of his eye. "It's the same voice I heard when you weren't sure we'd get him back from those bank robbers in Puerto Rico." She clicked the video closed and turned her pleading gaze to both of them in turn. "It's the voice of the real Jack Dalton, sensing someone he cares about in pain and wanting desperately to help."

"I..." Jack wanted to believe her. His heart ached yet again to believe those words.

"Jack," Mac said quietly. Jack turned to him again. The younger man's eyes were still damp and reddened, but some softer emotion had replaced most of the pain and sorrow in them. "Do you remember the last thing you did before the drug overwhelmed you?"

"I... I told you both to go. To leave me before..."

"Your first thought was to protect us," Riley interjected, moving closer to them again. "And your first thought when you came back to yourself was to make sure we were safe." She put a hand against Jack's chest, flattening her palm over his heart. " _That_ was you."

"I don't know..."

"Well, I do." She moved the hand to his shoulder and placed her other, very gently, on Mac's. "And Mac does." The blond man raised a hand to Jack's other shoulder in silent confirmation.

"But..." Jack lifted his own hand to Mac's shoulder to illustrate his argument, but this time, the other man did not flinch in the slightest.

"Mac can get past this." She gave Mac's shoulder the lightest shake. "You can get past this." She looked determinedly into Jack's eyes as she shook his shoulder in turn. "Of course it will take time, but you can both get past this." She raised her hand slightly so that her fingers lightly brushed his cheek. "We can't any of us get past you dying."

Jack had no more protests or arguments. He was wrung out of words in general, so his only response was to raise his free hand to Riley's cheek and to give first her and then Mac the best smile he could manage. It was likely weak and sad, but it was returned.

"We can get past this." Mac was no doubt trying to sound confident, but it still sounded like a question.

"Yeah, Hoss." It would haunt them and all their interactions for who knew how long, but they would. Somehow. It was the only viable option. "Now, I think we'd better end this little tater tot before someone walks in and it gets more awkward."

"I think you mean tête-à-tête," Mac corrected, giving a mock eye roll as he pulled away.

"And technically it would be tête-à-tête-à-tête, since there are three of us," Riley chimed in as she too stepped back and lowered her arms.

"Yeah. Thank you both for that." Jack put a little mock irritation of his own in his voice. "Now, if you'll excuse me, the doc's ordered me to rest."

"Screw that." Both Mac and Jack raised eyebrows at Riley's language. "I still want those margaritas."

"Ooh, now you're talking."

"Not--" Mac started to protest but stopped when both Riley and Jack frowned at him. "Not on an empty stomach."

"Not a problem," Riley replied. "I know a great taco truck on the way to your place."

"Uh, come on over, guys. I might have some tequila."

"Perfect! But first..." She pulled a little device out of her pocket and plugged it into the laptop. She tapped away at the keyboard for a moment and the icon for that video disappeared amidst the satisfying sounds of a chainsaw. "My file shredder," she explained as she pulled the device back out.

"Can it fix your makeup, too?" Jack asked. "It's a bit of a mess."

"Just trying to match you guys." She tucked one arm in his and the other in Mac's. "Now let's get out of here before Matty finds us."

They did not laugh as they made their way out of the Phoenix, but there were a few tired smiles. And there was an easing of tensions that might, after a solid meal, become hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was no way to give this a 100% happy ending, but this hopeful ending is, I hope, somewhat believable. It definitely needed Riley.
> 
> By the way #1: Computer vagueness was because it's Jack's POV.
> 
> BTW #2: I wasn't making stuff up about nitrous oxide.
> 
> BTW #3: Of course Matty knows. She would have picked up on something amiss and then probably watched them working it out on the Phoenix security cameras. She'll likely decide that pretending she doesn't know will be best for everyone.

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so there is a National Institute of Health study on heart rate and blood pressure during various stages of sex that found that neither is significantly raised beyond daily routine levels by the act. Apparently, the heart attack during sex thing is mostly a TV/movie trope.
> 
> Aftermath in the next chapter.


End file.
